MinorScraps

Have you heard of Adobe Configurator? It’s a nifty feature that I learned about while watching Photoshop User TV hosted by Scott Kelby.

You can create your own custom tool panel to use within Photoshop CS5 or Illustrator. I created a panel of the tools that I use most while creating a scrapbook page. In addition to creating your own panel, you can also save it to share with others (or yourself on different computers).

Here is a screenshot of my panel:

I also made a custom workspace:

Set up your photoshop windows the way you want them to be every time you open the program, then go to Window-> New Workspace. Save the workspace with an appropriate name. Now while creating, I have the things I use most often at my fingertips. And, the nice part is I can edit these things as my skills develop to suit my needs.

GirlTalk Blog had a contest to pick one spot in your home, beautify it, and submit before/after pictures for a chance to win $100 to your favorite home store.

Thought I’d share how my garden changed. Even if I don’t win, I am really happy to see this little spot as I walk into my home. Now for the garden on the other side of the front stoop…

Before:

After:

Update: I didn’t win. Here’s the link to see the winners. They deserved it First Place and Runner Up

Question: How do you get a family portrait when your family is spread all over the country?

Answer: Take multiple photos and merge them with a photo editing program.

The solution is easier said than done. When I was back home in September, I had everyone get together for a family photo. The only family missing was my middle brother’s. When taking the picture, I left some blank space in the background:

I then asked my brother to send me some photos of his family against a blank wall. Unfortunately, one of his photos was way overexposed. Being a novice photographer, I wasn’t sure what to do, so I started fiddling with the exposure and other settings in Lightroom and Photoshop. The photo was not coming out well, so I put my photo project on the back burner.

Just a few weeks ago I was looking for some new scrapbooking blogs to read that have tutorials regularly. I found Mye DeLeon and her post here about fixing underexposed photos in Photoshop. At the end of the post, Mye also talks about how to fix overexposed pictures by duplicating the layer and changing the blend mode to multiply. So easy and made my picture usable!

Before:

After:

After a lot more layering with adjustment layers to equalize the color and lighting in each photo so that they would blend, I finally have a finished product. A little late for Christmas, but just in time for Easter.

For those unfamiliar with digital scrapbooking, there are fun challenges to complete online to help you get pages finished. One is called a speed scrap. You are given directions and a certain amount of time to complete the assignment. It’s neat to see how many different pages are created when everyone is using the same directions.

Here are the directions from Stuff to Scrap Speed Scrap 322:

1. Pick out 4 Papers, 2 Patterned, 2 plain and 2 Photos.

2. Layer the 4 papers as your background Patterned Plain Patterned Plain. Adjust them however you like as long as you can see some of all 4.

3. Crop your 2 photos into Squares or at least the same shape as each other. One Big & 1 Small and place them overlapping on a lower corner.

4. Layer 3 Ribbons / RicRac / Stitches / Strings under the photos along the bottom of the layout.

5. Add as many elements to the photo ribbon cluster as you would like. I only used 2 but if you want more to cluster by all means.

6. Add Journalling above the ribbons, beside the photos.

7. Add any drop shadows and last minute touches & a title if you wish. Upload to the gallery & post it in the forum. You have 1 hour from now.

And my page…

Credits:
Forever in Blue Jeans by Scraps of Ellay
Page inspired by “Do Everything” by Steven Curtis Chapman

Now for the kicker, I created this cute page, but in the process of saving it for the web, I lost the original file. Boo. At least I have a pattern to copy though.

In case you are wondering, here is the final draft of my canvas art piece.

I really like how the font turned out. The color of the font is a sample of the fall leaf color. I changed the effects on the layers to emboss and satin to give it the shiny gold look.

The bottom layer is a brown-black sampled from the tree bark in the spring photo, then I used a photo of a forest and played with the blending modes and opacity to find the effect that looked best.

Using drop shadows, I was able to make the photos look matted.

I saw this product in Target yesterday while shopping and thought, “That is a really great idea. I need to try that!” Feeding an infant baby food is a messy prospect and anything that can make the food from spilling out of the bowl during feedings is a great thing.

The Easy Squeezy Spoon by Munchkin

Food is placed into the bulb, then squeezed onto the spoon. You can then feed the food to your child.

Unfortunately, I’m disappointed with how this spoon actually works. In order to squeeze food out, the silicone bulb must be completely filled with food. And then when you get near the bottom, you need to get very creative with how to squeeze the food onto the spoon.

Even if rolled up like a tube of toothpaste, there is a lot of food left in the spoon that is either wasted, or needs to be spooned out the conventional way. For me, I would rather just save myself the hassle of funneling food into the silicone part and trying to get the right squeeze and just use a regular old bowl and spoon.

Ways to Improve this Spoon

1. Make the entire device out of a more slippery plastic. This kind of silicone feels slightly sticky and picks up lint and other gunk after a while. Use the silicone as a gripper spaced out along the bulb.
2. Make the entire device out of a squeeze plastic except the spoon so that less food is wasted.
3. Make the bulb more like a pastry bag so that it is easy to squeeze and control flow of the food.
4. Put an opening at the base instead of in the middle between the bulb and spoon.

All in all, a good idea. It just needs better design.

While singing at church one Sunday I was inspired to make a piece of wall art based on the hymn Immortal Invisible, God Only Wise by Walter C. Smith.

This summer Groupon had a Canvas on Demand coupon. Now the coupon is expiring on October 22, and I still am not quite happy with how my art is looking.

Here is my original concept:

It really wasn’t working for me, so I got some feedback, scrapped the original idea and came up with these:

Horizontal:

Vertical:

Now, which do you like better, horizontal or vertical? Should I keep all the text in golden yellow? Should I change the capitalization in the verses? Leave some comments and help me out! (Thanks to everyone who has commented so far in this process. Hope you aren’t getting tired of it)

Welcome to those of you visiting from Digiscrap101! I don’t post regularly (you can see the reasons why in previous posts ), but if you like what you see, you may put my blog in your feedreader and get updates from time to time.

Today I am sharing a page that I did based on a speed scrap challenge over at Stuff to Scrap’s forum.

For those not familiar with Speed Scraps, you are given a certain number of directions to complete in a set time frame. Once you are done, you have a finished page. It’s a great way to get some guidance and still design a page on your own.

Here are the instructions (Speed Scrap 278):

1. Select 1-3 photos.

2. Pick 8 papers – You can pick 4-6 and duplicate some if you would rather but you need at least 4 different ones.

3. Set one paper as your background. Cut 5 large strips from at least 3 other papers (2 can be duplicated…at least 3 need to be different) and place across the background paper.

4. Place photos across the center of your layout or across one edge. They don’t have to be straight or aligned.

5. Mat photos with 2 papers, one on top of the other.

6. Place 2 elements wherever you wish. They can be duplicated up to 3 times each.

7. Add a title or journaling if you want. Add shadows and other finishing touches.

And here is my page:

Since I had so many pictures from that day that I liked, I used the page I made, turned it counter clockwise, and rearranged the pictures a bit. New page in less than 30 minutes! Easy!

Credits:
Forest Friends Alpha by Erica Zane
Fairy Take by Stuff to Scrap

I am having problems with metadata that I enter into Adobe Lightroom’s catalog not consistently saving to JPEG files that were downloaded from my camera. My goal is to have the metadata saved directly to the JPEGs without extra steps such as exporting files from the catalog or resaving images as JPEGs in Photoshop.

I am experiencing the same issues with Mac OS v 10.6.8 and 10.7.1. My photos are captured with a Nikon D50 as JPEG (setting: FINE). I am running Lightroom 3.4.1.

I set catalog settings to automatically write changes into XMP, set Lightroom to back up each time I exit, and set camera RAW cache to 50 GB. All other settings I left as default. Pictures were copied into the catalog as JPEG from my camera card. I tagged and added captions or titles to numerous pictures.

Today when I opened Lightroom, some pictures had the exclamation point badge (sidecar file has conflict) and some didn’t. When I tried to resolve the mismatching sidecars by clicking “retry metadata export” or “save metadata to files” manually within Lightroom, the program would go through the motions of exporting the metadata (progress bar, etc), yet when I checked the actual file that the catalog is linked to, the metadata was not included in the information for the actual image. The exclamation badge still showed in the catalog also.

All the metadata I entered into the catalog remains there and is correct.

Photos captured on the same day, downloaded from the same camera on the same day they were taken can behave differently. Some photos will have the metadata saved properly, others will not.

In comparing the info for files where the metadata wrote and those which didn’t, I noticed that the permissions are different. I changed the permissions of the non-written files to match the written files and tried to resynchronize with no luck. I can export a photo from Lightroom and the metadata will be included in the newly created file. I can also download the files from my camera, open and resave them as JPEGs in Photoshop, import them into Lightroom, and the metadata writes to the files with no problem.

Is anyone else having this problem? I can’t find anything in the forums or searching the web.

UPDATE: Adobe has released version 3.5 for testing. The problem I was experiencing seems to have been fixed.

I’ve been trying to develop a beer bread recipe that is similar to The Great Dane’s. It has a light, yet hearty texture and is dark in color, like a pumpernickel.

The recipe I found online gave me a pretty heavy loaf with hardly any flavor.

I tried some New Glarus Brewery ales, and also a mix of brown sugar and molasses. I could taste molasses more than any other flavor.

The other day I bought some stout beer to try in the recipe. I also mixed some whole wheat flour in with the white. My thinking is that in the mixing process too much gluten was forming and if I added a less processed flour, the density of the loaf would be reduced.

The recipe I ended up making turned out to be pretty good. I think it still may need some more tweaks, but I’m happy with how it is now.

>1 cup whole wheat flour
>2 cups all purpose flour
>1.5 tsp baking powder
>1.5 tsp instant yeast
>2 Tbsp brown sugar
>1 Tbsp molasses
>1 bottle (12 oz) stout beer (I used Zonkers)

• Preheat the oven to 400 F
• Mix the dry ingredients, then pour in beer. Mix until dry ingredients are wet. It is important to not mix too much or you will get a lot of gluten formation.
• Place dough into loaf pan
• Bake for 30-40 minutes (Bread will crack on top. This is normal)

You can add other spices and herbs to suit your taste. Experiment with rosemary, thyme, garlic, whatever flavor profile you are trying to achieve. My may also want to change the beer if you’d like a lighter beer flavor.

Happy Baking!